Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

-----a programme of savage cuts, including the loss of 25,000 jobs in the public sector, which, as the House will be aware, is already under serious pressure in many services such as health, a cut of €750 million in capital expenditure which can cost up to 10,000 jobs and so on.

The Minister will have half an hour to roll out his list, which is easily done. However, responding to the devastation that this will cause, laying out the consequences of these cuts and the alternatives, which we have and which we continue to put to the austerity policy, takes far more time.

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